Tokyo Revengers – Episode 16

Ah…. Kazutora, I don’t think that’s the conclusion we were supposed to make. Mayhaps the correct conclusion was ‘stealing is wrong’ or ‘attacking strangers with blunt instruments is a bad idea’, but I’m pretty sure putting this all on Mikey is not where this should have gone at all. Granted, I understand how he came to this conclusion. It’s impossible to believe that he’d actually kill someone let alone Mikey’s brother, so the fact that all of this happened because he was doing this for Mikey would lead to the natural conclusion that Mikey is the root cause of this. Unfortunately, this only seems to be the start of all the worry.

I liked that the majority of this episode was dedicated to a flashback of the founding members. It really showed that all of these kids were just friends messing around in a gang. They all had each other’s backs, but they also are just middle schoolers. And hey! We got the beach episode of the series and I certainly didn’t expect it to end in involuntary manslaughter. I love that they start off the episode with everyone on their bikes having a grand old time and of course Mikey is there on his silly little moped. Just the interactions surrounding Mikey and the moped really makes it apparent that these kids are just in middle school. They are a rambunctious bunch who are a pain in each other’s side but at the end of the day, they would do anything for each other.

If anything, this episode really makes me wonder what’s happened to Baji during the time that Kazutora was in juvie. We see him actively protect Mikey’s little moped from the other gang and have Mikey come to the rescue. It’s apparent that early on Mikey has always cared very deeply about those he’s close to. Which makes sense considering how he acted with Pah-chin was arrested and when Draken was stabbed. He may be a jerk, but he holds people close. But Baji was someone who Mikey deliberately helped in this episode and at least by the very end, Baji still had a lot of respect for Mikey. At this point his leaving Toman seems to come from weighing who he cares about more: Mikey the leader, or Kazutora the friend. Ah… I’m sure something will come about next week that will shed light on the situation, but for now, I’m still confused about how we’ve made it to where we are in the present.

Everything surrounding the bike robbery was very unnerving. Kazutora is incredibly casual about the whole thing but having Baji on edge made me nervous. At best, they would have stolen the bike, but Mikey would have caught on and that would have caused its own problems and at worst… well that’s probably what we got. I told myself I wouldn’t pick up the manga until the anime was done, but I feel like they did justice this moment justice. Especially when Shinichiro appeared with Baji slowly realizing who he was. And the aftermath of the blow! As the guy is bleeding out, Kazutora is still there casually saying that they should leave with the bike. But as Baji explains that the person on the ground who is no longer breathing is in fact Mikey’s older brother we see Kazutora slowly lose his mind. He’s killed a man, and that definitely would lead to trauma right there. The narrative that it’s all Mikey’s fault bubbles up as a means to protect himself, but hoo boy that was quite a moment.

And the episode rides the momentum all the way to the end. As they are being led to the police car you have Kazutora who’s in a dazed state repeating the mantra to kill Mikey. And on the other hand, you have Baji who is traumatized in a completely different way. His emotions are all of the place and now he has to face Mikey? Ah, that’s a lot for him to handle. But it’s where they’ve found themselves and the ending sequence plays. Gah! I’m looking forward to seeing what we’ll learn next week!